


Captain America: The First Avenger Canon Divergence Recs

by fanrecfridays



Series: Steve/Bucky Fan Rec Fridays Masterlists [14]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Captain America: The First Avenger, M/M, Rec list
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:15:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24872146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fanrecfridays/pseuds/fanrecfridays
Summary: This rec list was originally compiled by members of the Steve/Bucky(18+) Discord server in March 2019.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: Steve/Bucky Fan Rec Fridays Masterlists [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1779550
Kudos: 2





	Captain America: The First Avenger Canon Divergence Recs

Canon divergence is one of my favorite genres of fanfiction. I love exploring different “what if” scenarios and how they might affect canon, and truly appreciate the Stucky fandom’s commitment to doing the same. This theme focuses on _Captain America: The First Avenger_ canon divergence, fics where the initial divergence point is something that happens in the film _Captain America: The First Avenger_.

For example:  


  * Steve never gets the serum
  * Steve gets the serum, but it has different effects than in canon
  * Bucky doesn't fall from the train
  * Steve doesn't get frozen in the Valkyrie
  * Steve is found before or after 2011
  * etc.



### Steve/Bucky CA:TFA Canon Divergence Fic Recs

 **Title:** 4F  
**Why:** Steve & Bucky don't grow up together, Steve doesn't get the serum and instead makes it to the front as a military prostitute.  
**CW:** non-con/dub-con  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/3316277/>  
Which is also in a collection with a few more works: <https://archiveofourown.org/series/237648>  
And then there's also a series with works inspired by the idea by a different author (some of these are happier/consensual Steve/Bucky, some of them are darker/more depressing, please read the tags.): <https://archiveofourown.org/series/261139>  
There's a fanbook too! <https://archiveofourown.org/works/17853578>

**Title:** 20th Century Limited  
**Why:** Cool fic kind of reminiscent of Inception where the serum gives Steve and Bucky telepathic powers and they live in a world of their imagination (complete with dino vs spaceship battles) while they're frozen  
**Link:** <http://archiveofourown.org/works/4719176>

**Title:** After The Bombs  
**Why:** Bucky never falls from the train and gets frozen alongside Steve in the plane, so Steve don't wake up alone in the future. A great fic with some delicious pining and nice scenes of them discovering the future together.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/5228426/>

**Title:** And the Autumn Moon is Bright  
**Why:** WEREWOLVES :D  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/10762506>

**Title:** Circles and Whale Songs  
**Why:** Steve gets rescued from the Valkyrie in 1987, marries Peggy, gets killed 4 months later. Is reincarnated, has a sister that's pretty great iirc, gets kidnapped by a newly-on-the-run Winter Soldier.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947637/>

**Title:** cover me in rag and bone  
**Why:** Bucky doesn’t fall, and after the defeat of Red Skull, the Howling Commandos are deployed to the Pacific. Doesn’t shy from the awfulness of the war there, but does deliver some outstanding Howlies moments and lovely slow build Stucky.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/3545390>

**Title:** even unto the end of the age (series)  
**Why:** Another amazing AU by eyres; where Steve stays behind while Bucky goes to war, and isn't given the serum because Erskine never leaves Europe. Bucky is taken and experimented on by Zola, breaks himself free, takes on the mantle of Captain Winter Soldier, and puts the plane into the ice instead. When he wakes up in the future, he finds Steve living in a nursing home in NYC. Heartbreakingly gorgeous Angst with a Happy Ending.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/series/330628>

**Fic name:** Gods Righteous Man  
**Why:** steve grows all of like 2 inches so he's this tiny fury instead of a ginormous beefplatter. Bucky is Captain America because steve is all of 7 inches tall (not really) and the american public can't have that. Explores him and bucky in the future. Read tags. WIP. Real quirky and gritty and good. Long. Steve gets into drugs, warning. He also is a terrible little shit. I love it.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/15567876>

**Title:** here we are, just about the same  
**Why:** Lovely vignettes from Steve and Bucky's life in the future after Bucky survives the train and wakes up with Steve in 2012  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/3375023>

**Fic name:** A Home Game  
**Why:** A beautiful, quietly yearning fic where Steve meets Bucky at a Dodgers game in 1952  
**Why 2:** A Home Game is amazing. The subtle, tentative, meaningful way they convey attraction to each other, as queer men in the 50s, without letting anyone else become aware of what's going on, is so tangible and heartbreaking and strangely lovely.  
**AO3 Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/13255437>

**Title:** I saw you there, I saw you then  
**Why:** I like this one a lot! Bucky died when he fell and gets reincarnated; starts off as a wrong-number plot and then gets into more issues when they finally meet face to face. Steve learning to love the new Bucky for who he is is really important!  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/11558838>

**Title:** I, The Paradox  
**Why:** Steve gets the chance to relive Bucky falling from the train–and breaks reality to save him. Then he wakes up in the present day with “two divergent timelines in his head, and two very different versions of Bucky in his bed.”  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/11841711/>

**Title:** Malibu  
**Why:** A lovely AU where Steve goes in search of Bucky’s body after he falls and is able to rescue him and prevent him from becoming the Winter Soldier. Steve defeats Red Skull while Bucky is recovering from the loss of his arm and they go home together after the war.  
**Link:** <http://archiveofourown.org/works/6999880>

**Title:** maybe tomorrow (i'll find my way home)  
**Why:** Steve dies with the Valkyrie, gets reborn in modern day. The Winter Soldier meets him after the fall of the helicarriers and gets attached, naturally.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/11836875>

**Title:** Murder Burgers series  
**Why:** Steve doesn't go down with the plane. Consequently, the Winter Soldier spends seventy years thwarting, and being thwarted by, a blond stranger who shows up at all his missions and keeps buying him food.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/series/359315>

**Title:** Our Lingering Frost  
**Why:** (If this doesn't count as TFA divergence proper, lmk!) Bucky falls from the train but is rescued before becoming the Soldier, Steve still gets frozen, and Bucky lives for the next 70 years without him (scarcely aging due to the serum), until 2011 when Steve's plane is found. Wonderful, understated, and heartbreaking with a happy ending (and everything else by this author is worth reading).  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/1584212>

**Title:** Redshift  
**Why:** The change here is that Bucky was found by a werewolf pack before being picked up by Hydra (is…is that enough of a divergence point? it does change things quite a bit later on)  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/2656796/>

**Title:** The Silver Answer  
**Why:** An AU where Steve joins the army but doesn't get the serum, instead joining the Ghost Army unit and winding up with all the reputation of Captain America, but none of the supersoldier powers. The narration is broken up with chunks of later interviews and other epistolary material that gives context for how the Captain America illusion was built and then later disassembled, dirtybinary's writing is always a treat, and it's just a deft, lovely piece of work.  
**Why 2:** YES I was half way through reccing The Silver Answer earlier when I got interrupted - second all of that and also it's one of those lovely fics that really isn't like anything else I've read. It has a unique approach to the Red Skull and the Valkyrie sequence, for one  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/10944660>

**Title:** Souls, Love, Classic Movies, and Other Immortal Things  
**Why:** Reincarnated Bucky this time! Bucky died when he fell from the train, now he's Steve's SHIELD-assigned bodyguard. Bucky doesn't realize he's guarding Steve for the first little bit, and Steve doesn't know how to handle someone who looks so much like Bucky.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195039/>

**Title:** This Little Light of Mine  
**CW:** Please be advised that it's very unhappy & involves Extremely Dubious Consent/noncon.  
**Why:** Steve doesn't get the serum and dies, years later the Winter Soldier breaks free and figures out how to bring him back to life. Steve is Not Happy.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/8232497>

**Title:** An Unfamiliar Coast  
**Why:** One of my favourite “Steve never gets the serum” stories, which has the Winter Soldier escaping HYDRA and returning to Brooklyn in the early 50s. Beautiful angsty shrinkyclinks from last year's RBB.  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814155>

**Title:** V-day  
**Why:** A short, sweet, and very in character AU where Steve was caught lying on his enlistment forms and sent to jail instead of receiving the serum. “Only you would organize from inside a goddamn prison to help support the war, Rogers.”  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/7758037>

**Title:** We're Different Now  
**Why:** TENTACLES :D  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/14032179>

**Title:** Where is Thy Sting?  
**Why:** Okay, it's been a while since I read this, but there's a reason it was the first fic I thought of to put here despite being a likely-abandoned WIP: it's a gorgeous story with Steve and Peggy taking in POW!Bucky in the 50s, and I think does a good job tackling what Bucky would actually go through? It also starts to get plotty (hey, a choose-your-own-adventure!). And against that you have a beautiful story of the three of them trying to navigate life as, well, the three of them. It gets up to 35k so you have a good bit of story to sink your teeth into. While not darkfic at all, parts of this are decidedly not fluffy, so be sure to read the tags. Note this is Steve/Bucky/Peggy  
**Link:** <https://archiveofourown.org/works/9663560/>

Thanks to everyone who added recs for this theme!


End file.
